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EXCLUSIVE: Naren Shankar is stepping down as executive producer/co-showrunner of CBS’ long-running crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. He has been on the show for eight years, serving as co-showrunner alongside Carol Mendelsohn for the past five seasons.
Shankar has one more year left on his overall deal with CSI producer CBS Studios and sources say the intention always was for him to focus on development towards the end of his pact. “It was time for him to flex another creative muscle,” an insider said.
Exec producer Mendelsohn, who has been on CSI since the beginning, building the CSI franchise with creator Anthony Zuicker and CSI: Miami showrunner Ann Donahue, is staying at the helm of the mothership series. The veteran forensic drama, now in its 10th season, has been showing significant ratings wear and tear, especially after the departure of star William Petersen last year, but it still does the job as CBS’ centerpiece series on Thursday night.
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The show has been awful ever since Petersen left. Fishburne is a great actor, but the character they’ve created for him was totally misconceived. Fishburne was meant to take the place of the series lead, but instead they’ve saddled him with the newbie role and the least authority of anyone on the show. Every case and every episode required Grissom’s involvement because he was the leader of the team. When Peterson took some time off to do a play they brought in Liev Schreiber because the role was so important. Langston, meanwhile, could disappear tomorrow and it wouldn’t make the slightest bit of difference to any of the characters or the show itself.
All of this is true, but this CSI is miles ahead of CSI NY and especially CSI, MIAMI, both truly awful shows. My husband and I can tell what year an old episode of CSI MIAMI is by what stage of cosmetic surgery Calie is in. Sadly, we have gotten pretty good at it.
Did he leave a chalk outline behind?
Liev would’ve been a better replacement. Such a SHAME that they killed his character off.
The problem with CSI is the way they wrote Fish(Langston) which has been extremely and VERY POOR. In one episode he is the newbie who can’t even lift a fingerprint, and then the next episode he is telling Nick what to do plus they give him an office!?!? He gets most of the screentime usually and acts like the boss more than Catherine or Nick (this current season has been better but it could improve with more evened out screentime). Greg needs more screentime and a storyline, (Brass also needs more screentime) plus Greg never got that much screentime or authority when he became a CSI. This season has been better but the thing that would make it better is to get rid of Fish because he DOES NOT fit into the show, make him Dr. Jekyll or something (I would so like him better if he was Jekyll)and then they can finally make Wendy a CSI =D). Too bad they did kill Liev(Keppler) off, he was alright. CSI’s ratings didn’t go down too bad until the end of last season. CSI pretty much always wins against Grey’s, besides most tv shows are down in ratings any day because of things like the internet.
I wish Naren the best in his future endeavors. It is difficult for us fans to let him go because he has been such a huge presence on this show and such a brilliant plotter. This is a huge loss for us, and probably a huge gain for Hollywood.
CSI is a very nasty place to work. Can’t believe they still around. Guess we can thank the fly over states. Yep…
I am not sure at all what you are trying to day here, but i get the feeling its a slam against.. well I don’t know, but you will have to state your source for your comment to be valid.
Let the CSI’s go… but Keep COLD CASE on sunday nights… this last season has been it’s best so far.
First of all you cannot blame the departure of Petersen as the reason for the decline in ratings. CSI has been going sown hill ever since Grissom and Sara became the chemistry free be all end all of CSI because the producers cared about nothing else. The writing has been bad that is the reason the show is lacking. I don’t blame Naren for jumping ship before it sinks.